Just A Zero
by Moonsetta
Summary: My first attempt at something TMNT. I see there aren't really a lot of pieces on Don and Leo. It's a bit of brotherly fluff that wouldn't stop following me. Rated T for mention of blood not sight of.


Just some brotherly fluff that caught up to me at 1:07am the other day. Anyways I couldn't sleep until I typed it up. So, why not post it? Ok this is based on the 'Big Brawl' episodes. Poor Leo, I almost cried, not really. Anyways, I couldn't help but notice how protective Don was of Leo especially when Usagi was trying to help. Then when Don said, "What can I do? I'm an engineer not a doctor."

That's when I thought he must have felt very guilty for not being able to help him.

* * *

For a moment I attempt to forget where I am, even who I am. I refuse to reconcile my thoughts, to leave the remaining space in my being for hope.

_Or maybe I'm just hoping for hope…_

My gaze only moves rarely to the lantern, that small light. Maybe I'm looking for a comet to pass through it's shine and make those eyes open once more.

_A moan…_

My eyes race to his face to see his eyes twitching the length of a cell. It wasn't my shooting star though, not my lone constellation either. My voice has dried out and I refuse to drink any water my only conscious companion in the room brings to me. I can't read this rabbit's mind, but his eyes say what he speaks of. For all my knowledge, it's a show. He was fighting my brother, he was there when the lightning bolt struck this world down. How and why should I trust him?

He says I should sleep. Heh, so he can slit my brother's throat while I'm not looking!? As if!

It's also because I'm afraid to close my eyes. I can only see my brother, that broken glass, that blood, those wounds claiming his body as if it were free to every demon that crawled over time.

_A deep breath…_

Why do my eyes never see what they should? Why can't I do something!? The dark words at the end of this path say there is nothing I can do but, I should be able to do something, anything for him!

I glare at the rabbit warrior again and then set my eyes back on my concern. He's all that matters right now, this end is all that tells my story. Again, those twitching eyes and again I'm searching for that opening of meteor showers and shooting stars.

The whole situation becomes an equation in my mind. I'm the zero before the decimal, just there to hold a place, not doing anything for the numbers after it. It's easy to lose when you're a zero, you're in the middle and there's no where to go. This gray furred samurai is the unknown variable, you have to trust it all works out to equal those opening eyes again.

_Another moan…_

I glare at the rabbit and he meets my eyes. My distrust is shining through like the lantern's light over us but his eyes remain open, saying that his words are true. That look is the guiding equation, like Pythagorean's Theorem, a^2+b^2=c^2

Then it's supposed to all work out. It's then everything's supposed to be ok, but the variable is still unknown, still not trusted, the equation remains a Theorem, maybe a postulate even, but it's not a fact. Even the stars I gaze for are not embedded in granite.

_Again, a deep breath…_

I raise my hand and pull the dry cloth from his head, his fever is still rising. The total still riding higher into unknown variables in my mind. I'm trying to stop it, I'm really trying, but it hurts to know I'm failing. I grind my teeth together at just observing how dry his skin appears to be. The fever had boiled away the water in his body. Even the grassy green shade of his skin has darkened as if a world of chlorophyll suddenly gave way into a winter of black, oil filled, snow. I glance away for a moment to soak the cloth in a wooden bowl of cool water beside me and I ring it out quickly. My gaze is away for eight seconds.

Anyone could do anything in eight seconds…

The rabbit hasn't moved. The only motion are his eyes glancing back at me. My anger slims a bit but I look away before I trust the one who could have caused this. I don't have to force my gaze to my brother's face, I'm doing that without thought now. Draping the damp cloth back over the heated skull of my big brother I have to glance back at the lantern for a moment. It's at those moments, when something is in motion, that I don't want him to see me. It's that moment when the lightning bolt strikes my mind and I remember again.

Nothing that's what it was, nothing. My words hadn't mattered, my voice couldn't change past events, my presence didn't help. It was nothing, I was nothing. Science may be facts but our emotions and lives held more magic than any experiment or invention could ever hope to capture. It was only proof that I couldn't work a miracle.

I don't even know if he would hear me now. I want to speak but I refuse to mutter a sound while any movement from that excuse for a rodent could send all this spiraling over the edge.

I refuse to remove my hand. I still it on that cloth as if the contact could make stars shine up at me once again.

Another hour, and another five planets pass my eyes. Another six ceremonies of the draping damp cloth. Three more moans of pain. Then, 15 more deep breaths, his mouth opening to the depth of a piece of paper.

That twitch of his eyes yet again, the cell dying, never to be replaced by something new. No, nothing could replace him, or even those eyes.

My eyes fall to half their mass, because I've choked back my worries along with my tears. The top of my sight contains that darkness. I'm afraid of that darkness.

A door opens and a passerby looks in before closing the sliding door again. I'm positive I've made the mood lamentable enough.

"You should rest Donatello-san," the rabbit says.

An explosion and I glance fearfully down at my brother. His eyes don't twitch, his breathing remains shallow, his heartbeat remains slow. Of course, what was I thinking? That the cut through time and space would fill enough of the air to cause an anomaly of some degree? Maybe that the manipulation of the still air would make a difference?

I want to sleep, oh I really want to sleep. The variable remains unknown and the total can not be left alone. It's not a number without a zero holding a place beside it. I'm a zero, I'll always be there, but I'll be nothing forever more. There, to hold a place, to be a mat on someone's doorstep. To catch the mud off scraping boots across my mind and spirit.

I cloud my eyes and look up at this 'warrior' again, "Sit further away," I command in a voice that would have the taste of coal blacked, dirtied, bitter-aired stones.

His eyes speak for him again. He means no harm. My eyes speak back. I can't trust you.

He tilts his head to gaze down at my brother. I'm tempted very highly to lash and out and force those eyes as far away as possible but I automatically fill my eyes with this picture again. His breathing is almost microscopic.

My hand travels from his head to his chest, where I can barely feel it rising and falling beneath my olive skinned hand. I feel that heartbeat for all of three seconds. My eyes fly like lasers up to see that the rabbit has complied. I calculate it's enough distance to stop most attacks if he turns to strike.

So with every regret rotating in the gravity of my mind I lay my head down to listen for the heartbeat that's become slower, more quaint, weaker. I force my body to relax and lay down beside him, my head still listening for the heartbeat that's become spontaneous at one of all moments.

His stopping heart I fear will be my alarm clock. No, not my alarm clock, my world's clock, calendar, timeline. The apocalypse of this life I've known seems to have come onto my moment of time. There's no sun, no snow, no rain, no ice, no fire, no water, no oxygen, no darkness and no light. It's a transparent, opaque, and invisible world.

I shoot a glance at the samurai again and curse my eyes for doing such a thing because he's meditating.

_Meditating…_

Winds unseen and unfelt push my eyes upward where his eyelids twitch, not once, but twice. Somehow that make me smile and I'm ready to believe that his breathing his quieted, his heart has sped up and that his chest is rising a bit higher but once again-

_…maybe I'm just hoping for hope…_

"Leo…"

Muttering his name doesn't seem to help. This though is where I start crying, at least in my head.

_I want you to wake up big brother…I want to see your eyes opening to the world again…any world it doesn't have to be earth…I want to hear you speak…say something…even if it makes little sense…just say something…look at me…just be alive-_

Then I realize again that I should be doing something, I should be performing the miracle that's needed, but I can't because I'm not strong enough to do it. Somehow though, I make a promise. If such an explosion of sand on glass ever occurred again, I would be ready. I would be more than just that zero in the equation. I'd be that fact, that defined helper, whether the problem was manipulated or not, I would be the constant. Things would be the same, I would make everything right, every variable would equal out with me there.

I look, really look and almost again believe he's breathing easier than before. These eyes have become dark lidded though and I can't trust what I see.

So I listen…

His heart rate has slowed again.

Breathing doesn't count then, if the heart can't send oxygen through the body, especially to the brain, then it's pointless and likely more painful.

I lightly touch the tips of my fingers to the hard casing of that carapace and plastron we share as turtles and make some noise in the back of my throat as my nerves move in unison with the spontaneous rhythm of that heartbeat.

I stretch my sight quickly over to that samurai who meets my eyes. He stands and I tense every muscle in my body, ready to jump up and reach for my bo staff that is still strapped to my shell. I wait and stare at the empty space between him and my eldest brother. I just wait for the sight of his fur to enter that area but it never does. I risk another silent, longer stare as he crosses the room, slides the door aside, steps outside as if he were a ghost and gently, without a sound leaves the room.

I have a feeling, no I just know he'll be back. He's too honor-bound, like Leo, to stay away from a wounded friend for too long. These minutes have become mine though and although it had become an automatic movement, this time it became a climb to the lunar stone in the sky that I often gazed upon with my brothers.

Finally, I sweep my eyes upward only to have them locked onto a gaze. A gaze that held no comets, no shooting stars, no asteroids, no lightning bolts, no constellations but, a personal sun. A sun for me and just me. I gulp and take a deep breath but I never allow my locked orbs to waver from that sight.

"Donny," he whispers softly, the words in the air becoming falling white clouds in that transparent world that now sailed far behind me.

It was that sight that made it all equal out, it was that voice that sent that comet through my mind and it was that speeding heartbeat that splashed the magic back into time.

His eyes begin to cloud over, they became white snow, the white snow the covers that black coal-like snow to balance that world. The difference and wholeness of the world and worlds of yin and yang. Only one but two. Only two but one.

When those eyes begin to fall I know it's all going to be okay. It's the moment where I can close my eyes and accept those images from the past and not fear that darkness that surrounds them. When I sense movement I don't bother to open my eyes.

When I'm scared and my big brother's chased all the demons away I know it's all safe.

When those shooting stars pass overhead and he hugs me it's the time I move up and tuck my head under his chin. The time I let the sun just shine is the time that everything equals everything else and in that moment I know I'm safe.

* * *

Ok so it was A LOT of fluff and apparently I think very differently at different times of the day. Why can't I write like that in Creative Writing? Or maybe I am and I just don't realize it.

Anyways please R&DR!

Seriously, I mean it R&DR.


End file.
